At 9 a.m. we put Kurt and Jon S in a taxi headed for the biological research station on Laguna do Apoyo. Alicia and Vanessa caught a bus for their work with AMLAE in Rivas, and Jacki and Valerie (who surprised me with a visit already today because they needed to buy scrubs) are working at a health clinic in La Concepción.

And an apology that I did not get pics of sending the last group off. We took separate taxis to the bus terminal. Unfortunately unknown to us there are two terminals in Jinotepe, and I went to one and Lisa to the other. By the time we found each other, the microbus driver was not about to wait for me to take a photo.

As soon as we begin our service visits we will post more blogs. Meanwhile we will be writing reports and orientating next year’s leader, Jeanne Liechty.

Within a short walk of the railroad station, we encountered a Socialist-era monument to Ernst Thälmann, a leader of Germany’s Communist Party who was executed at nearby Buchenwald in 1944. Then the 19th-century Neues Museum, a Nazi-era bureaucratic complex, and not much farther, the 18th-century Baroque St. Jakob’s Church. Charlotte Vulpius, wife of the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was buried there among the original resting places of other famous residents such as the 16th-century artist Lucas Cranach the Elder and 18th-century poet Friedrich Schiller. Much of our day was spent tracking places significant to these and other well-known Weimar residents such as the composer Franz Liszt. 2009 is the 90th anniversary of both the Weimar Republic and the Bauhaus school. Although local museums included exhibitions related to both anniversaries, we focused on Bauhaus, whose theories influence the design of much that we consider “modern.” We visited the building in which the Bauhaus school was housed 1919-1925, saw an introductory film, and visited an exhibition that showed objects—textiles, furniture, toys, ceramics, and more—produced by Bauhaus artist-craftspeople. At the end of the afternoon (and in-between downpours) we took a moment to celebrate with two students the birthdays they will have while we are at our service locations.

The director of the seminary where we hold our language classes and lectures, Reverend Timoteo Kim, invited us to spend an afternoon worshiping, eating and playing with his students. We had fun singing together, sharing a meal and then mixing it up on the soccer field and volleyball court. The next day we visited Villa El Salvador, a recent settlement on the outskirts of Lima based on egalitarian ideals whose people suffered greatly during the 1980s and early 90s due to the activities of Shining Path terrorists. We walked through a new neighborhood at the edge of the city where recent migrants sort through piles of garbage trucked in from central Lima in search of building materials and other usable items. Later we ate in a soup kitchen in a more established section of town and then divided into groups of 2 or 3 to visit the homes of families who attend a local church.

The week ended with a despedida, or going away party, a chance for the students to say “thank you” to their host families and language instructors for all they have done for us. The group sang several hymns and recited a poem. Speeches were made. The families were entertained by a male quartet, a skit, an original ballad celebrating life in Lima, a ballet performance and other acts. And then came the grand finale, a twenty-student performance of a traditional Peruvian dance called La Marinera Ayacuchana.

As the fifth week drew to a close, our thoughts turned to the next week’s visit to Cusco. Photos of a wonderful trip coming soon…